Baseball Has Long Been Fascinated With Football Heroes Like Tim Tebow

Tim Tebow is just the latest example of a well-known football player crossing over into a career on the baseball diamond. The results for the former Heisman Trophy winner, like many others before him, have been mixed.

It's hardly new, baseball's curiosity, its fascination with football stars such as Tim Tebow, who brings what many see as a quixotic quest to Hartford on Monday at 7 p.m.

The idea that an athlete with the size, strength and mentality to play football at a high level can translate all that to baseball has tantalized the most legendary of baseball executives for a century. Tebow, who signed with the Mets in 2016, like many who came before him, brings a larger-than-life persona to baseball, even at the minor league level.

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"I've never looked at him as a football player," Mets general manager Sandy Alderson told The Courant this week. "I certainly recognize that he is a celebrity. Perhaps the grit, the determination shows through in baseball, but I've never thought about him being a football player in terms of what that all means in terms of success or failure."

After the 1913 baseball season ended, John McGraw, the most famous and fiery manager in the game, organized a world tour and took many of the best players with him.

And he also took a rookie who had hit .143 in 19 games. But if Jim Thorpe could ever be made a baseball player, this was the vehicle to do it. As the tour ended, McGraw was sending glowing reports from overseas to the Giants front office.

McGraw had signed Thorpe, the controversial and enigmatic star of the 1912 Olympics and an All-American football player, to a three-year contract at $6,000 per year, which was triple the average salary. He later traded Thorpe to Cincinnati, but reacquired him in 1917.

Thorpe, a .252 career hitter, gave up on baseball in 1919, the year George Halas, the MVP of the Rose Bowl, showed up at the Yankees' training camp in Jacksonville, Fla., and electrified the scouts and the writers with his size, strength, speed and intensity. Halas, a switch hitter, injured his hip, but made the team. When it became clear he couldn't hit a curveball, his career was over after 12 major league games, notable mainly for a shouting match with Ty Cobb. Halas became a founding father of the NFL, and Thorpe joined him.

Jim Thorpe, college football star and Olympian, played for both the New York football and baseball Giants. (Courant file photos)

The 6-foot-3, 245-pound Tebow won the Heisman Trophy and quarterbacked national championship teams at Florida, and played briefly in the NFL, winning a playoff game with the Broncos. Tebow, 30, who homered Saturday, is hitting .241 through 23 games, with three home runs, 12 RBI and 38 strikeouts in 86 plate appearances. He hit .226 with eight homers in 126 games in Class A last season.

He and Class AA Binghamton will play the Yard Goats at Dunkin' Donuts Park Monday through Wednesday.

"He's still acclimating to the Eastern League," Alderson said. "He hasn't been overwhelmed by any means, but continuing to show improvement. I think we've been pleased with the way he has started the season. It continues to be a work in progress, but he has a tremendous commitment to success."

Scouts say Tebow has had problems with high fastballs, and has struggled in the outfield.

"He's a great athlete, incredible strength," said one scout who has watched this season, "but not a very good baseball player, to put it bluntly. When you introduce higher-level pitching, it's just not competitive."

Several scouts echoed those sentiments at recent Yard Goats games. However, each one, when asked if he would recommend Tebow if he were 21 years old, nodded their head.

More than 70 players have played in both MLB and the NFL, including Heisman winners Vic Janowicz and Bo Jackson. Brian Jordan gave up football after three NFL seasons in 1992 and had a long major league career. Deion Sanders, for a time, played both simultaneously — playing for both the Falcons and Braves on the same day, Oct. 11, 1992.

"He'd be scoring off the charts today," said Yankees GM Brian Cashman, who was with the organization when Sanders was coming through their minor league system. "He could have had a great career if he focused solely on baseball. Like Bo Jackson could have. Deion Sanders was a unique talent that would be the desire of any team in baseball today."

When Branch Rickey sought a player to break baseball's race barrier, he chose Jackie Robinson, who had been in the national spotlight as a football star at UCLA. Later, in December 1952, he signed Janowicz for the Pirates, though he had seen little of him as a baseball player.

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"I am betting on his mind, body and spirit," Rickey told reporters at the winter meetings, "rather than his natural abilities, to become a real star. He is a leader and has a great desire to excel in anything he cares to undertake."

Alderson said many of the same things the day the Mets, after attending a workout for several teams, signed Tebow for $100,000.

Janowicz signed to so high a bonus, he was subjected to the "Bonus Baby" rules of 1953 that required him to go directly to the major leagues. He played very little for the Pirates, and went to the NFL.

Tebow's route is different, after failing several times to catch on as an NFL quarterback, including stints with the Jets and Patriots. He decided to give baseball a whirl, not having played it since high school. The Mets' initial investment in Tebow is modest, and he will likely pay it back many times over in the sale of licensed items and ramped up attendance anywhere he goes.

Some laughed; some called it a play for publicity on both parts. Others who know Tebow take it very seriously.

"I was happy for him," said Cheshire's Steve Addazio, who was Tebow's offensive coordinator at Florida and is now the head coach at Boston College. "I know Tim is a highly competitive guy and a great athlete. I thought it was great and he'd do really, really well. What he has been through as a collegiate star, leading the Broncos in a playoff game, he's not just another guy who specialized in baseball coming out of high school. This is a well-rounded veteran, tough guy, tough mentally, has-been-through-the-mill-at-a-high-level kind of guy."

The spirit, the toughness, the experience of the football star led Cashman to bring Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson to spring training for a few workouts and an at-bat or two. He wanted his young players to be around him.

"Chad Bohling, our mental skills coordinator, knows Russell and suggested it," Cashman said. "Baseball's his first love. I saw what he did with the Rangers, and Chad approached me and said he thought this would be a great opportunity for guys to pick his brain. He wasn't a bona fide No.1 pick in the draft, transferred from one college to another, became a Super Bowl quarterback. You can learn about success, learn about how you deal with failure, leadership, competing, being a teammate, injury prevention. I thought these were all things our players would benefit from."

Mets GM Sandy Alderson has predicted Tim Tebow will play in the major leagues. (John Bazemore / AP)

Tebow, too, has been a model and teammate for the much-younger players surrounding him in the minor leagues the last season and a half. He insists on no special treatment, except for the extra security he requires.

"To his teammates he demonstrates a resolve," Alderson said, "a commitment, a work ethic that's unmatched, at the same time a humility that makes him a good teammate. His reputation is well deserved as a humanitarian, someone who has tremendous empathy. That's inspirational as well."

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During his early years as Yankees GM, Cashman signed Drew Henson, a top high school power hitter who played quarterback at Michigan. Henson played briefly with the Yankees, but was overmatched by MLB pitching and went to the NFL. The usual story.

"At the higher levels," Cashman said, "whether it's the velocity or the breaking ball or the high pitch packages, it's a specialized sport and it doesn't mean, despite your physical tools, you'll be able to survive it."

Tebow's biggest weakness, scouts say, is the high fastball, but when he "runs into one," it travels a long way. He homered in his first professional at-bat in 2017, and in his first at-bat for Binghamton this season. Yard Goats manager Warren Schaeffer, who was managing Asheville last season, well remembers facing Tebow, who wenmt 4-for-10 with a double and triple against his pitching staff.

"He's a big boy, he competes at the plate," Schaeffer said. "You can tell he wants it, and for us last year he was a tough out."

Moving from football, a game of physical toughness played once a week, to baseball, a game of specific skills played nearly every day for six months, takes a shift in mentality as well.

"You see the exceptional speed and strength, and the combination of the two," Schaeffer said. "Bo Jackson — he was an impressive dude. It's just a totally different sport. Baseball, you've got to have this skill to succeed. It's a very high-skilled game, it's very difficult to succeed in this game, and that's not to say [Tebow] can't. … I'm sure there's a huge difference. All you do is prepare, prepare, prepare all week for football, and here you have to prepare every day in a short period and perform that night. It's tough to do, if you're not used to it. You have to find a level of intensity you can sustain. It's a grind, man, it's tough."

Tebow's appeal goes far beyond his football and baseball careers. Through all his years in the limelight, he has been a polarizing figure. A devout Christian, he has a following of passionate fans and sneering critics, on TV, radio and the internet. He is an athlete that no one seems able to ignore, and he certainly won't be ignored in Hartford this week.

"I think he has a charisma about him," Addazio said. "You talk about people being 'a dude,' Tim Tebow's a dude. One-hundred percent real. He's always going to be bright-eyed, happy to see you and talk to you. He lives his life of faith, it's who he really is. He has a love of life, a love of sport, a love of competition.This is a strong-willed, strong-minded guy, and if anyone can do this, he can."